


for lips are the only things that touch

by cdocks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Kissing, M/M, So much kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdocks/pseuds/cdocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kiss meme fills from my tumblr || chapter 02: shiro/matt, "a kiss to make up" -- <i>“Wow.” Pidge's voice is completely flat, accompanied by her arching both eyebrows. “Shiro. Overprotective. In other news, space is big, Zarkon is purple and space bears shit in the woods.” Honestly, it's becoming harder and harder for Matt to refrain from throwing his pillow at her.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i posted a [kiss meme](http://ceedawkes.tumblr.com/post/148128886260/askfic-kiss-meme) on my tumblr and all the prompts were voltron-themed, which i am extremely happy about, thank you very much. i only have three thus far, so please feel free to hit me up with more! i love prompts!
> 
> this first one was prompted by the lovely and talented [robin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/deuxoiseaux): keith/lance, #22, "more than one kiss". it was also heavily inspired by [this tumblr post](http://cathodedebris.tumblr.com/post/100615073128/lilpetrabbit-a-few-days-ago-bf-told-me-that-a).
> 
> hope you enjoy~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter 01: keith/lance, "more than one kiss" -- _saying “a kissaroo from me to you” in a slightly goofy friendly voice sort of like the voice you’d associate with a dog muppet._

The hallway of the Galra ship is long and dimly lit, and every sound reverberates off the purplish metallic walls. So Keith is careful not to make any sounds, darting from one corner to the next, taking advantage of the shadows to make his meticulous way towards the door at the end of the hall. Behind it is the control room, likely full of information about Zarkon and the Galra army, information that'll be vital to the war effort. He's made it this far, past all the guards. Just a little further and the intel will be his.

Keith inhales slowly, measured, slipping into a shadowy alcove and checking again that his bayard is close at hand, that his heart rate is even and his senses are alert. He doesn't know how many Galra are behind that door. He has to be ready for anything and everything.

Unfortunately what he ISN'T ready for is a sudden presence behind him, looming for a split second before long strong arms wrap around his chest and pin his arms to his sides. Before Keith can react, there's warm breath against his hair, then the horrifying, unthinkable feeling of –

– a pair of lips smooching him just beside his ear and then cooing: “A kissaroo, from me to you~”  
  
“GOD DAMN IT, LANCE!”

At the enraged shriek from the Red Paladin, Shiro sighed wearily and buried his face in his hand. Below him, in the training room that had been mocked up to look like a Galra ship, Keith was currently attempting to beat his delightedly cackling teammate to death with his own helmet.

“...should, uh. Should I cut the simulation?” To her credit, Pidge asked this without actually bursting into uncontrollable laughter, though Shiro could hear it lurking behind the words. He nodded, mutely, and the walls of the ship dissolved into thin air, leaving just Keith and Lance.

Why is it _always_ Keith and Lance? Shiro had assumed that after the two had worked through some of their...unique issues (or, as Pidge said “did the do and stopped clogging the air filtration system with their UST”) most of the problems between them would disappear. He'd been completely wrong, of course. The problems had just changed from Lance goading Keith at inopportune times to Lance smooching Keith at inopportune times.

Shiro honestly couldn't decide which was worse.

“Paladins!” At the barked word, Keith immediately got up from where he'd been squashing Lance's face into the floor of the simulation room, standing sullenly with his arms crossed. His still-giggling teammate propped himself up on his elbows and cheekily saluted Shiro from the ground.

“S'up, Shiro?” Lance had his best good-natured expression on, but Shiro was feeling far from good-natured. He stood above the Blue Paladin, arms crossed, brows furrowed over his scarred nose.

“Do you think this is a game, Lance?” There was a note of genuine anger in his voice, and Lance seemed to sense it, sitting up all the way and crossing his grasshoppery legs underneath himself. “The Galra are _still out there._ If you can't work together in a simulation, how are you going to work together out on the battlefield?”

In response, Lance scoffed, which immediately earned him a none-too-gentle nudge from Keith's foot. “What battlefield?” he demanded, glaring up at Shiro in frustration. “It's been _weeks_ since we've come across _anything_ bigger than a patrol ship! We do these dumb training exercises every single day and break into that same door at the end of the same hallway--"

“I _said_ I was _coding a new layout_ , Lance!” Pidge snapped from the control deck, looking about ready to fling the nearest piece of tech at her teammate.

“--and every time Keith does it perfectly and I provide backup and yada yada yada,” Lance finished, apparently not noticing how Keith turned red as his lion and cleared his throat repeatedly at the compliment. “What's it gonna take for you to realize we _can_ work together and we _have been_?” There was a pause.

Shiro waited patiently for the inevitable.

“...in _bed,_ yoooooo~” Lance added, tossing a grin up to Keith. Keith remained red-faced and unimpressed.

Shiro sighed, rubbing at his forehead to ease off the impending migraine. It was a common migraine, at this point. He'd nicknamed it “Lance Junior”. “It isn't that I don't trust you two,” he began, trying to ignore that Lance was scooting over on his butt and elbowing Keith in the leg, trying to repeat his “in bed” joke in case it hadn't been understood the first time. “I want you to remain sharp, that's all. We never know when something's going to happen.”

The annoyed expression left Lance's face, and he managed a half-smile, rolling to his knees and scrambling to his feet. “I'm sharp!” He insisted, stepping over to sling an arm around Keith's shoulders. “We're sharp! Everything is sharp, Shiro. Honest to god.”

Keith huffed out an annoyed sigh, but noticeably neither denied this claim or moved out from under Lance's arm. That alone was enough to make Shiro soften considerably, letting his crossed arms relax, even smiling a little bit. “Maybe I've been working you guys too hard,” he admitted, raking his metal fingers backwards through his hair.

“...in _be_ \--”

Lance's repeat performance of his classic one-liner was interrupted with a gloved hand smushing itself firmly over his mouth and a flat: “Aaaand now we're gonna go!”

With a grateful nod to Shiro, Keith turned Lance around and, still covering his mouth, steered him towards the exit, presumably to cool down and shower. Or maybe to continue trying to bludgeon him over the head with the nearest blunt object. It was sort of a 50-50 thing.

Sighing wearily, Shiro watched them go, shaking his head as he heard Lance wiggle free and say, excitedly: “Hey, we've gotta go find Hunk so he can high-five me for my awesome joke! Since nobody _here_ understands _clever wordplay_...”

“What “clever wordplay”? Lance, you used the word “kissaroo” unironically in a sentence five minutes ago,” Keith retorted as the door swung shut behind them. Shiro had to laugh at that, pushing away the sinking worry that when the need really came, there was no way those two would be ready...

* * *

 

So naturally, because the universe was out to get him, Shiro's worries were put to the test the very next day. A routine patrol of a nearby system by the red and blue Paladins in question was interrupted by a swarm of Galra fighters. The other three had rushed to their Lions and set out to provide back-up, but had been caught up battling the larger Galran destroyer.

Keith and Lance were left alone, outrunning and attacking the fighters, swerving and darting between asteroids to try and elude them, too far away to even have a chance of forming Voltron. Shiro was torn between monitoring their progress via the Black's data screens and focusing entirely on backing up Hunk and Pidge. The destroyer was targeting the Castle, and if they didn't give it their all, it would send the ship crashing to the barren planet surface, far below. It was entirely up to the Red and Blue Lions, and their constantly bickering Paladins.

They were totally doomed.

Or...so it seemed. Because from what Shiro could see, they were moving in perfect sync, Keith baiting the fighters with his smaller, more agile Lion and Lance moving in to blast the ships into oblivion as soon as their attention was diverted. Miraculously, it seemed that all that training and constant practice hadn't been for naught after all! By the time Hunk had finished off the destroyer with a mighty blast, and Pidge had driven the few fighters away from the Castle and into the Black's menacing jaws, the red and blue pinpricks that were Keith and Lance were on their way back, having utterly eviscerated the Galra.

Shiro was grinning, hearing the younger Paladins whooping and cheering and congratulating one another on the victory, gained without any major injuries or damage. He was just about to add his own approval when a blur of motion from around the hollowed-out destroyer snatched his attention.

“Keith! Look out!” Shiro yelled, but by then it was too late – the remaining fighter had gone right for the Red Lion, ugly metallic claws emerging from it's hull and burying themselves deep into the smallest Lion's hull, on either side of it's face. The fighter began to emit a horrific buzzing sound, drowning out Keith's yell of pain, uninterrupted by Paladin and Lion's attempts to shake the fighter off. The other Paladins watched in horror, too far away still to form Voltron in time, afraid of shooting the fighter off in case it damaged Red.

The fighter vibrated and shot bolts of electricity into the Red Lion, looking like a monstrous, hideous crab, clamped to the tortured robot's face. Keith was trying everything, thrashing his Lion around desperately, despite the shocks causing him to double over in his seat, but nothing was working. This would be how it ended, how _they_ ended, how Team Voltron was destroyed – by a single fighter, destroying the Red Paladin from the inside out.

“Hey! Asshole!”

Lance's familiar voice, low with rage, crackled through the horrified radio silence, broadcast out to whatever was piloting the fighter. His hands were white-knuckled on the controls as he wheeled Blue around, aiming the Lion directly at the clawed ship. “Nobody gets to smooch my boyfriend _except me!_ ” he snarled, slamming the throttle forward as hard as he could. Blue shot ahead, searing through the empty space, letting out a mighty roar.

The fighter didn't have a chance. Distracted by this passionate declaration, the claws had slackened their grip, the electric shocks had stopped, and Keith took his chance. The Red Lion wrenched it's jaws open, dislodging the fighter and sending it careening directly into the pulse of ice erupting from the Blue Lion's jaws. The ice splintered silently in the vacuum of space, pulverized shards of Galra ship raining down around the two Lions as their Paladins eased them to a stop, nose-to-nose, floating in thin air.

“A kissaroo...” Lance began with a grin, as Blue nudged it's nose almost affectionately against Red's.

“...from me to you,” Keith finished, breathless and strained, but grinning as well, Red nuzzling Blue right back.

After a long, relieved pause, filled only with the affectionate-if-strange robot kisses of two relieved Lions, Hunk finally piped up. “Uhhh, if you guys are gonna change the team chant, I...would like to have a vote. Because seriously. _Kissaroo_?”

Keith laughed, prompting Red to head back towards the Castle. “Told you he'd think it was dumb.”

“Shut up, Keith,” Lance retorted happily, turning Blue and following along.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter 02: shiro/matt, "a kiss to make up" -- _“Wow.” Pidge's voice is completely flat, accompanied by her arching both eyebrows. “Shiro. Overprotective. In other news, space is big, Zarkon is purple and space bears shit in the woods.” Honestly, it's becoming harder and harder for Matt to refrain from throwing his pillow at her._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here is my obscure beloved ship that i adore and which i have sold my entire soul to. this chapter was prompted by [red](http://thatredfirelight.tumblr.com/) who is in this shiro/matt pit along with me, and asked for #14, "a kiss to make up".
> 
> featuring pidge being the greatest little sister ever, ofc~

They argue like they do everything else – like complete opposites. Matt is wholehearted and passionate, not holding anything back, having spent too many months keeping his head down and his mouth shut. Shiro is all closed-off expressions and tight body language, the muscles in his jaw and his neck working in constrained annoyance. He's so careful, he's _too_ careful, and that's partially why they're fighting.

“I'm not going to _break!_ ” Matt snaps, and the fire in his eyes and voice is so reminiscent of Pidge that a small smile works at the corner of Shiro's mouth. This is a mistake, a huge one, because Matt jerks backwards, hands curling into fists, rage battling with hurt across his face.

So Shiro reaches out, human hand first, conscious even when he's being yelled at to keep the metal hand at his side. He shies away from contact, fidgets when Matt touches his right arm, makes excuses to not have to talk about it. _If I start, I'll never stop_ , he wants to explain. _If I let you see that part of me, you might accidentally see too much._

But there's so much between them, too many months of separation, of different forms of torture, and there's a reason Shiro sleeps with a shirt on and Matt can't stand to be alone. On Earth there would be other options – counselors and therapists, places to be safe, places to untangle the trauma they both wear like second skins. They aren't on Earth, though, they're a thousand lightyears away, and Matt is turning away from Shiro's touch and raking fingers through his hair in frustration.

“Stop treating me like I'm fragile,” he says, soft and biting. “Stop lying to me to try and spare me. I can understand. Let me try to understand.”

And Shiro wants to, he wants to let himself fall to pieces right then and there. Matt is so good at that, at finding how to loosen his defenses and slip in through the cracks in his armor. It's like a magnet under Shiro's ribs that tugs him towards the younger man whenever he's made up his mind to stay away. It was all over the second Shiro let himself touch Matt.

God, what kind of leader _is_ he? What kind of captain lets himself overflow and unleash all the pain and anger and confusion and loss coiled around his heart onto someone who cares for him so unselfishly? What kind of _man_ does that?

Shiro lets his hand drop, lets his fingers curl into a fist, looks down and away. “I can't,” he says, eyes shut as tight as he can. “I can't do that.”

Anger is stronger than hurt, so Matt lets himself get angry. He lets himself turn and stalk away without another word, let's his head swim with words like _stubborn_ and _selfish_ and _bad idea, this was all such a bad idea._ He doesn't look back to see Shiro curling in on himself like there's a physical ache in his chest. He skips dinner that night, tucks himself into the rarely-used bed in the room he doesn't think of as his, and tries to steep himself in anger until he stops missing Shiro next to him.

He doesn't let himself think about Shiro alone.

* * *

 

This, of course, lasts less than a day. Matt is also missing from breakfast, and while the majority of the Paladins keep their distance, still getting used to the dynamic of their unofficial leader dating someone (as much as you _can_ date someone in space), there's a noticeable exception.

“Hey, doofus.” It's probably meant fondly, but it's also accompanied by Pidge dropping the entirety of her weight directly on the lump of blankets that is her older brother. Matt makes a sound somewhere between a growl and a whine, one hand emerging to swat petulantly at his younger sibling.

Pidge, of course, simply grabs that hand and ever-so-casually twists it until Matt emerges from the blanket cocoon, gasping and wiggling free. “Ow!” he protests, hugging his hand to his chest. “Cruel and unusual punishment!”

“You missed breakfast,” is Pidge's placid response, as she moves to sit cross-legged on the end of the bed. She's taller than he remembers, broader in places, leaner in others. She moves with a care and grace that's battle-honed, and her gaze is even, defiant almost. If Matt didn't love her so much, he'd be a little afraid of her. “I think Shiro was about ready to cry into his green goo. Gotta stop playing games with that guy's heart, Matty.”

This hits far too close to home, and Matt straightens up a little, mimicking her posture and reaching up under his glasses to rub wearily at his eyes. “...we had a fight,” he says, quietly, not meeting his sister's gaze. He doesn't want to see if it'll be sympathetic or outraged.

When she speaks, however, Pidge's tone is neutral, the same carefully measured tone their mother would use whenever the Holt siblings had some sort of disagreement. “Oh. About what?”

Matt shrugs, torn between wanting to unburden himself and wanting to crawl back under his covers and never come back out. “He was...trying to convince me not to go planetside the next time the Castle needs to stop for supplies. Something about it being too dangerous, too big a risk. I got angry, called him overprotective.”

“Wow.” Pidge's voice is completely flat, accompanied by her arching both eyebrows. “Shiro. Overprotective. In other news, space is big, Zarkon is purple and space bears shit in the woods.”

Honestly, it's becoming harder and harder for Matt to refrain from throwing his pillow at her. “All right, yes, maybe that's obvious. But that doesn't make it _okay with me_ for him to treat me like I'm...going to break if he looks at me wrong.”

Pidge shrugs, propping her chin in one hand. “Nah, it probably doesn't. Did you tell him that?”

Matt falters, looking down at his lap, the redness creeping up his neck a clearer answer than any verbal one. Because no, he hadn't – not until they'd already been fighting. Maybe he'd figured it would pass, that it was just the after-effects of Shiro seeing him starving and terrified in a Galra prison camp. Maybe he'd hoped that once things were better, Shiro would be less...anxious.

With a sigh, his sister reaches out one foot, nudging Matt's knee to get his attention. “I agree with you, it's not cool for Shiro to try and...I dunno, cramp your style or whatever. But it's also not cool of you to not _tell him stuff_ _,_ ” she says, gently, sounding much more grown-up than a teenager her age should be.

“I don't...” Matt shrugs, uncomfortable, slouching against the head of his bed. “I don't want to make him upset. He already has so much to deal with, I don't want to make it worse.”

As he's looking downwards, Matt completely misses how Pidge's eyebrows are raised again, and how her expression is one step away from _I am surrounded by emotion-laden human disasters_. “So...basically what you're saying,” she begins carefully, voice just the slightest bit flat. “Is that you're stupid butt-crazy in love with this guy, so you're overcompensating and being super protective, which just makes things worse?”

“Yeah,” Matt grumbles, still not meeting her eyes.

“...sort of like how Shiro's stupid butt-crazy in love with _you_ , and he's overcompensating and being super protective and making things worse?”

There's a very weighty pause, during which Matt visibly Realizes Some Things. “...oh. _Oh._ ”

Pidge sighs, relieved, stretching her arms above her head as her wide-eyed brother slowly stands, leaving the blankets in a heap and mumbling something that's half-thanks and half-goodbye, before practically bolting out of the room to find Shiro. “Guy's supposed to be a genius,” she grumbles, making herself comfortable on Matt's bed. Relationship advice makes her sleepy.

* * *

 

Shiro's in one of the innumerable rooms off one of the countless halls of the Castle, sweat-damp from his solo workout, sitting and staring out the window into the pitch black of space while he catches his breath. His left hand is raised, massaging his right bicep, where metal and flesh meet, where he can still occasionally feel the ghosts of injuries he can't remember. He doesn't hear Matt enter, doesn't react at all until the smaller man's crept up behind him, slid both arms around his neck and buried his face into Shiro's shoulder.

But when he does react, Matt considers it a small miracle that it isn't to flinch. Instead Shiro sighs softly, leans back into the touch and is obviously about to apologize, to take all the guilt onto himself. So Matt beats him to it.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles, where neck and shoulder meet, lips moving against skin salty from sweat. “I'm sorry for yelling at you. I'm sorry for pushing you. I'm sorry for not being honest with you. I'm sorry for not coming to your room last night. I'm...sorry it took me this long to find you, but this Castle is _enormous._ ”

There's a soft rumble of a chuckle and Matt dares to lift his head, kiss the side of Shiro's neck, step around the chair. The look on his boyfriend's face is achingly tired, his eyes closing when Matt reaches to trace the dark shadows underneath them. “I'm sorry too,” he says, quiet, hands coming up to draw Matt into his lap, knees on either side of his thighs. “I don't...I don't want you to see any more horrible things. I want to protect you from that.”

He exhales, hands broad and shaky on Matt's sides, leaning into the touch against his cheek. “I want to protect _this_ ,” he falters, voice thick, arms wrapping around Matt's still-too-thin waist, pulling him closer. Like he can't breathe until they're together. Like there's a magnet over his heart.

Matt just nods, stroking his thumbs gently across Shiro's cheekbones, kissing the top of his head. “I know. I do too. I do too, love,” he whispers.

Then his hands move under Shiro's chin, tip his face up, brown eyes meeting grey. “I chose you,” he says, soft, fierce. “I chose you, Shiro, and I chose everything that's a part of you. All the horrible parts. All the ugly parts. All of it.” Matt smiles, leans in, nudges his nose against Shiro's, his lips against Shiro's, closing the space between them.

Shiro's mouth is soft, trembling, but his arms are iron around Matt, hand splayed across his narrow back. He tilts his head back, inhales like he's breathing in for the first time and tastes Matt on his exhale. They kiss slow, forgiving, making up for lost time, for last night and the hundreds of nights they didn't have each other. Matt's fingers move to curl into Shiro's hair, shifting closer in his lap when he has to pull back to breathe.

“I trust you,” Shiro says, eyes still closed, tongue sliding out over his bottom lip. He blinks, looking up into Matt's eyes again and smiling, that sweet, hesitant, boyish grin. “I want to talk to you. I want to and I don't want to. But I...I want to _try_ more than I don't want to.”

Matt's mouth curls into a smile in return, lips tingling and hungry for more of Shiro. So he nods, glad that their only witness outside is an eternity of glinting stars. “That's a start,” he teases, scrunching his nose affectionately, then tugging Shiro forward to kiss him again.

 


End file.
